


Pyre

by Kablob



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/F, F/M, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Screw Destiny, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 10:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16830505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kablob/pseuds/Kablob
Summary: In a version of Remnant where people are born with the first words their soulmate will say to them written on their arm, Pyrrha Nikos has always been disturbed by what hers reads.





	Pyre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aromantic-eight (rbmifan)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rbmifan/gifts).



Most people had perfectly mundane soulmarks.

 _“Hello”_ or “ _nice to meet you”_ or “ _hey, could you pass the salt?”_ Something like that. Something that people said as their first words to you often enough that it was the cause of hilarious misunderstandings until you finally met the person who was supposed your soulmate.

Pyrrha Nikos’s...wasn’t. Her soulmark was a long phrase, dark, strange, and incredibly ominous. It had scared her ever since she was old enough to understand what soulmarks _were._ How could someone supposedly meant to be the love of her life introduce themselves like that? What on Remnant could they even be _talking_ about?

For most of her life she had tried putting it out of her mind. Gotten into the habit of wearing long gloves to cover up the threatening text written on the inside of her right arm, tired of the curious looks and probing questions that they always prompted. Focused on her training. She had been born with such incredible advantages and opportunities open to her, and she was determined to use them to do something _worthwhile._ Dedicate herself to the service of people who didn’t have those advantages, and become a Huntress. That was her destiny, she’d decided.

And she was good at it. She was _really_ good at it. She was _twelve_ when she won her first tournament, against someone four years her senior. Before she knew it she was swept up in a frenzy; famed, celebrated, given sponsorships, put on the cover of _cereal boxes._ And always, always uncomfortable with it. This was everything she wanted to be, but everything that came with it…she wanted being a Huntress to be her _choice,_ for her decisions on what she did with her life to _matter,_ and more and more her decisions were pressured to match what was _expected_ of her. Her life wasn’t her own anymore: she was Pyrrha Nikos the Invincible Girl, and everyone celebrated her from a distance, because how could they ever be good enough for her?

At least it made it easier to not dwell on her soulmark.

Then, at Beacon, things had started getting better. Jaune Arc’s first words to her were a perfectly innocuous and dismissive _“Yeah, yeah,”_ which wasn’t her soulmark, but _was_ a refreshing change of pace, especially compared to Weiss Schnee’s open and somewhat gushing admiration of Pyrrha’s reputation. Jaune didn’t even know who she was. To him, she was just...Pyrrha.

She’d decided then and there that she wanted him as her training partner, soulmarks be damned.

And the way Jaune treated her as an equal brought her down to mortal level in the eyes of everyone _else_ at Beacon too. She made so many real _friends_ for the first time in her life: her and Jaune’s teammates, Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren, who had _“Hey! We have to be brave._ ” and “ _Nora.”_ written on their arms. They were, as Yang Xiao Long had once joked, the platonic ideal of platonic soulmates. A lot of people didn’t _believe_ that platonic soulmates were a thing, but Nora and Ren’s devoted, non-romantic, non-sexual relationship showed that view was wrong.

And one of her other friends, Blake Belladonna, was proof enough that your soulmate wasn’t always good for you. Blake kept a wrap around her arm to hide her soulmark, and though she was reluctant to discuss it with anyone, Pyrrha eventually learned that Blake’s soulmate had been _incredibly_ abusive to her, had treated her as a possession of his, and that she had escaped him before coming to Beacon. It was...inspiring, in a way. The universe had put Blake with the _wrong_ person, and so she was determined to find companionship elsewhere. She was so close with her partner, Yang, that Nora had started a betting pool on when they’d start dating. Yang’s soulmark was a cryptic _“Yang. So, after all this time, you finally decided to visit me,”_ but she didn’t much care that those weren’t Blake’s first words to her.

You _could_ forge your own destiny.

And then one night, after an intense training session on their dorm rooftop, Jaune had taken off his gauntlet and shown her his bare arm. He was one of those rare people born with no soulmark, and he confessed he had always worried this meant no one would ever really care for him—not helped by the common cultural portrayal of markless people, which was...less than flattering.

Pyrrha nearly kissed him on the spot. But instead, she showed him her own soulmark, the portentous words that frightened her so, and they had become even closer over the strange hands that fate had dealt him.

Soulmates be damned, predestination be damned, Pyrrha _wanted_ this. She loved him, she wanted to spend her life with him. They were made for each other, and she didn’t need writing on her arm to tell her that.

And then, one day, when she was happier with her life than she thought she’d ever been before, Professor Ozpin had invited her up to his office and asked what her favorite fairy tale was. _That_ wasn’t her soulmark, but it proved to be just as baleful. Suddenly the weight of the world—a world that was so much scarier than she’d ever known—was on her shoulders, and she was being asked to give up her friends, her life, to literally merge her soul with another’s—a horrifying act that no one knew the consequences of.

Maybe Amber was her soulmate. But Amber was in a coma she was unlikely to ever wake from, so there was no knowing.

Pyrrha tried asking Jaune for help without telling him what was going on, but his beautiful, innocent encouragement of her was, by no fault of his own, the last thing she wanted to hear. _You can’t let anything stand in your way._

She wondered if he’d say the same if he’d known her love for _him_ was the thing standing in her way.

And then...the world had gone to hell. Penny Polendina was dead at Pyrrha’s own hand, thanks to her lashing out with her Semblance in panic, unaware of Penny’s mechanical nature. She felt awful, even though it wasn’t her intent, even though her actions had been manipulated. Penny's death and the Grimm invasion of Vale were the work of the woman on the microphone, and also of Emerald Sustrai—who Pyrrha had thought of as another friend—who according to Ruby likely had some kind of hallucination-based Semblance that she’d used to make Yang lash out at Mercury Black as well. Mercury, who was on his feet and had fought Ruby when she tried to confront Emerald, when his leg was _supposed_ to be broken.

If even Ruby, Penny's own soulmate, didn't blame Pyrrha, then at least Pyrrha could swallow her guilt for the moment and focus on defending the people of Vale. She could do what she knew how to do best and do it alongside the people she loved...but then Ozpin had appeared, and Pyrrha had known there was only one thing she could do.

But it had gone so, so wrong. She’d watched helplessly as Cinder Fall, the team leader of Emerald and Mercury’s who Pyrrha had never met in person, executed the Fall Maiden with an arrow to the chest and claimed Amber’s full power for herself. Ozpin told her and Jaune to run, that they would only get in the way, and Pyrrha knew he was right. She might be a prodigy, but she couldn’t hope to defeat a _demigoddess._

So they ran, contrary to all of Pyrrha’s instincts...and then Cinder had killed Ozpin. Not even _he_ could stop her.

But someone had to try.

And Pyrrha was the only one left who had any chance at all.

So she had finally kissed Jaune the way she’d wanted to for months, and gone off to, in all likelihood, die. She’d thrown herself into battle without a word, given the fight her all, even had Cinder on the ropes a few times…

But there was only one way it could end. And as she tried and failed to stand back up on a shattered, arrow-struck ankle, Pyrrha knew the end was at hand.

And then, for the first time, Cinder spoke to her.

 _“It's unfortunate that you were promised a power that was never truly yours,”_ Cinder said, and even through her agony Pyrrha went utterly still at the words.

Then Cinder knelt down in front of her, lifted Pyrrha’s chin, smirked down at her, and finished the statement the exact way Pyrrha knew she would. _“But take comfort in knowing that I will use it in ways you could never have imagined.”_

What a strange twist of fate, to meet her soulmate like this.

Fate. Destiny. Was she a prisoner of them, after all?

Pyrrha tugged her chin out of Cinder’s grip and asked her, _“Do you believe in destiny?”_

The smirk vanished from Cinder’s face, and while Cinder’s soulmark was covered by her sleeve, Pyrrha knew that Cinder had read those words every day of her life.

Cinder’s expression turned determined. “Yes.” She stood up and reformed her glass bow in her hands, notched an arrow, drew it back. _“And I will make my own.”_

Pyrrha closed her eyes, and waited for fate to take her.

**Author's Note:**

> The fun part of Soulmate AU's is using them to subvert the idea of One True Love. Here they're all mutual, but sometimes they just don't work out. Ren and Nora are full-on soulmates but they're neither sexual nor romantic, they're the platonic ideal of a QPP (pun intended). Blake certainly doesn't belong with Adam, and Yang's most important relationship certainly isn't with her mother. And with Pyrrha's (and RWBY's overall) theme of destiny, it was very fun to work with her here. Jaune is the love of Pyrrha's life, but Pyrrha and Cinder /are/ soulmates in this AU...in a rather more literal sense than the term is usually applied.


End file.
